


i want to be with you and only you (forever)

by cmbing



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F, georgetown era, these two deserved to be together, up to 5x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmbing/pseuds/cmbing
Summary: Five times Will and Alicia could have ended up together.





	i want to be with you and only you (forever)

**Author's Note:**

> so i spent the last month binge-watching the good wife and will/alicia has me absolutely destroyed. they deserved to be together. here's me trying to fix their tragic ending (in five different ways)
> 
> also, this is barely edited as i am an exhausted college student. truly hope there isn't anything too glaring.

**i.**  

She sees him in the law library, nose deep in a book. 

He wears a navy Georgetown sweatshirt like hers. It looks good on him in a way it shouldn’t; it hangs onto his slightly broad shoulders and trimmed arms, not engulfing him, rather making him look defined. He must be an athlete, or at least formerly. Not football—maybe baseball, basketball. He balances a pen between his lips in careful concentration, then abruptly tugs it into his hand and scribbles down a note. Alicia knows she’s probably being creepy, watching him study, almost in a daze, but she can’t look away.

He picks up his head and she tries to drop hers. But their eyes meet and he breaks into a boyish grin and she desperately tries to stop the blush that’s sweeping high across her cheek bones.

He offers a quick wink before returning to his studies. She slumps back into her chair. This is dangerous water she is about to tread.

\- 

The words before her start to blur. Court cases, definitions, all one confusing haze. It’s one a.m. and she wants to go home, she _should_ be home, but her tax law exam is tomorrow (technically today, Alicia notes with a sigh) and she’s never been more stressed. She furiously rubs her eyes, tries to will away the exhaustion, but it seems futile. She’s always been perfect: top of the class, exemplary grades, beloved by professors. Law school, however, seeks to end that.

Just twenty more pages, she thinks to herself like it’s a manta. Yet she finds her eyes shutting and her head slipping into the palms of her hands.

Until—someone places a cup of coffee in front of her. She looks up, slightly alarmed. It’s the guy. Cute Georgetown Sweatshirt Guy. He smiles and she almost wants him to stop: it’s too broad and blinding for her tired condition. 

“What are you…” she trails off, befuddled.

“You looked like you needed a coffee,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“I, um, thanks?” She takes a sip of the coffee. It’s rich, just sweet enough, somehow perfect. 

He slides into the seat next to her. “I’m Will.”

He holds his hand out and she shakes it, all too lawyerly. Except, his skin is warm against hers and he looks too kind to ever wear a suit for the rest of his life with his flopped hair and puppy eyes. She clears her throat, trying to shake off what’s too close to catching feelings. “Alicia.”

He looks down at her textbook. “Tax law?”

She nods. “The absolute worst. I’m ninety percent sure I’m going to fail tomorrow.”

“Let me help you. Not to pat my own back, but I’m rather good at it.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “It’s one in the morning. Wouldn’t you rather get some sleep than help a stranger study?”

He says, “You’re not a stranger. We sit at this table all the time.”

“Never together though. I mean, we just learned each other’s names.”

“Are you always this argumentative?” he asks.

“I am studying to be a lawyer, Will. It’s what lawyers do." 

He shakes his head, quietly laughing. “Seriously, I have nothing better to do. I can help you." 

She holds her hands up, surrendering. “Alright then. Your loss.”

He starts going over terms with her. She begins to wake up and finds herself absorbing the information better. It’s the caffeine, she tries to convince herself.

But really, it’s the way he slides his chair closer to hers and whispers kind praise when she gets something right and then, _then_ there’s the one moment where their hands brush. It’s when she receives an A on the exam and bumps into him at the library the following week that he pulls her into a tight, congratulatory hug, one so strong it has him momentarily lifting her off the ground.

“Thank you,” she says, almost breathlessly, “for helping me out." 

“Maybe we can make this a thing?” He offers, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not that great at contract law.”

She catches on, giving him a smile, “But I am.”

“Then how about tomorrow night? Say… eight?”

She can’t stop the words that come out next: “It’s a date.”

His lips curve upwards, intensely and quickly. He grins like an idiot and doesn’t even try to quell it. “It’s a date.”

-

It’s four months later and heavy February snowflakes fall outside. Alicia has always liked Washington D.C. in the winter, the way city lights dance across the snow and it all gets a little bit quieter. She and Will cram themselves in the back corner of the library, hidden amongst the stacks of books in their own universe. She pours over a recent court case while Will jots something down in a notebook. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches him place down the notebook, then feels him brush her hair to the side and press featherlight kisses to her neck.

“Will,” Alicia giggles. “I’m trying to concentrate.” 

“So am I,” he muses. “Just on something else.”

“ _Will_ ,” she says again.

He pulls his head back and matches his gaze with hers. Then, lowly, with soft admiration, “You know I’m falling in love with you, right?”

It feels like she’s taking her first breath. Somewhat shaky, something of new territory, but feels wholly right, second nature even. She drops the papers into her lap and holds his face in her hands, drawing him into a gentle kiss. Her forehead knocks against his and she whispers: “I’m falling in love with you, too.”

And somewhere, deep down, she knows it will always be this way.

**ii.**

She calls off her engagement to Peter.

Law school ends. There’s a graduation ceremony and they throw their caps and Peter watches her in a way that she knows they’ll never make it. He’s smiling so wide and his eyes scream _look at us, look at our future together_ and all she wants to do is run away. So, when he treats her to a fancy dinner, she places her engagement ring next to her champagne flute, repeating so many sorries but not sure how much of it she actually means. She more feels bad about saying yes in the first place.

Alicia fell in love at Georgetown twice—but it only ever felt right once.

She stands outside Will’s apartment, the sky smudged with black and sticky with summer heat. Her fist hovers over the door before giving in with three sharp knocks. He opens the door, clad in a plain white tee and grey sweatpants, a complete juxtaposition from her long red dress.

“Alicia, what are you doing here?” he asks.

“Why aren’t you out celebrating?” she asks.

“Answer my question first.”

She says, “It’s over.”

He cocks his head. “What’s over?”

“Peter and I.” She lets out a sigh that she has held in for far too long. “He’s not the one.”

And he doesn’t say anything, just opens his arms like they’re a road back toward home, a familiar bend and curve. She falls into his embrace, holding on and not intending to let go, his arms forming a brace as she takes a shuddering breath and feels a single tear fall.

All she can say is, “I’m sorry.”

He asks, so simply and directly, like he always does: “Why?" 

“I let you go.” 

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. What we had was so good, but I was so scared. I was scared of how much you consumed me, how you always seemed to be in my head, how I didn’t feel like me without you. Peter was safe. He was so safe and his future was laid out and I never felt like if he left, I would fall apart. I loved him, or at least I think I once did, but I am _in love_ with you _,_ Will." 

“Shh, Alicia.” He runs his fingers through her hair.

“I’m just so sorry,” she chokes out. 

“We’re here now,” he says softly. She pulls her head back and looks up at him. He has the ghost of a smile on his face. “We’re here now.”

Their lips remain only inches apart. He says, carefully, “I know you just left Peter and it’s all so sudden but…”

His voice trails off. She pries, “What, Will?”

He looks at her, eyes never clearer and surer. “Can I kiss you?”

She nods and he leans in and this is where they begin again.

-

They elope when the cherry blossom trees bloom. He tucks one flower into her perfectly coifed hair and swears she has never looked more beautiful. She tears up when she says her vows; there’s no one else she could ever imagine saying them to. Not even Peter. Will looks at her with such adoration, such fierce love, with wet eyes and an uncontrollable smile, it makes it difficult to wait to kiss him until the officiant proclaims, “You may now kiss the bride.”

They work and win over clients and eventually build up the name and success to open up Gardner & Gardner during a Chicago summer. It begins small, just them and a few other associates. But soon rumors turn into rumblings, into conversations, and then into the talk of the town. Two lawyers, incredibly cunning and with a high win rate… who happened to be married. 

Judge Winters slams his gavel and deems the defendant guilty. Rachel Emerson, the now winner of an intense defamation suit, pulls Will and Alicia into tight hugs and tearfully thanks them for helping her. It’s no problem, they assure, as Rachel goes off to share her joy with her family sitting in the public gallery. 

Will draws Alicia in for a victorious kiss, one that skirts the line between a sweet moment and too much PDA. She intertwines his fingers with his and dusts her lips against his cheek. 

“Another win for the Gardners,” she muses. 

“It’s almost too easy,” he says as he leads her out of the courtroom.

“Getting cocky, are we?”

“I can when you’re sitting next to me.”

She playfully bats his chest. “You’re such a sap.” 

“Guilty as charged,” he grins. 

“Wanna get some celebratory drinks?” 

“Eh,” he says, “I’d rather go home, order some pizza, and just revel a little bit.” 

She smiles at his suggestion and can’t help but softly kiss him again, falling still as the chaos of law and lawyer swirls around them. People brush by and angrily whisper into their phones, plea bargains and settlements echo off the walls, always a push and pull between tension and relief. 

And yet, Will and Alicia remain, with promised forevers between every touch. In a world where people are meant to be broken, they continue.  

**iii.**  

She files for divorce the day after Peter is named guilty.

She moves into a new apartment with Grace and Zach a week after Peter is named guilty.

She becomes a first-year associate two weeks after Peter is named guilty. 

She remembers what she truly misses three weeks after Peter is named guilty. 

Will sits in her office, tossing a baseball to himself. She marvels at the things that never change, namely Will and his obsession with baseball. She thinks back to the posters he had decorating the walls of his apartment in Washington D.C., how he would convince her to stay after their study sessions to watch the Orioles game. He explained the rules, listed the statistics of his favorite players, cheered when they scored a run or made an incredible play. Alicia never liked baseball, but she liked Will’s love for baseball, so she would pretend she cared just for the moments when the game waned into the night and she curled into his side, letting her eyes shut as he described the play.  

“How’s your case going?” he asks, more or less filling the silence. 

“I think it’s a win,” she says, then almost wonders if she is too confident.

“That’s good,” he nods. “I knew you would fit in around here.”

“Really?” She places down her file and looks at him. 

He catches her gaze. “Of course. You were the best in class at Georgetown.”

“That was so long ago,” she says, lithe and wistful. Georgetown was easier. Georgetown was As on exams and parties that lasted until four in the morning and… Will. Laying on the campus lawn with Will and laughing at his sarcastic humor and kissing him, one, two, three times.

“Sometimes,” he breathes out. “And sometimes it feels like yesterday.” 

And then, she’s back there, back in the D.C. autumn when leaves are turning orange and first-year law students bounce with nervous anticipation. Intro to Criminal Law is the first class on her schedule, Monday mornings at nine. She meticulously organizes highlighters, pens, notebooks, and an overly-sweet caramel latte on the table before her. Her leg bounces, feeling the surreality at all, to be at law school, to be at one of the _top_ law schools. A boy sits down in the empty seat next to her and offers a sweet smile.

His eyes dart down toward her right leg. “Nervous?" 

She nods. “Yes, but I think I’m allowed to be.”

“Don’t worry.” He smiles some more. “I am, too.”

They fall back into silence. The professor enters the lecture hall. The boy leans over and whispers in her ear, “For some reason though, I think you’ll be amazing.”

Alicia shakes her head, breaking out of the memory. Will watches her in a way that she wonders if he’s thinking the same thing. That’s one of the scariest parts of it all: she’s been at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner for mere days now but their chemistry has come back in an instant, a shared mentality and near wordless connection. She’s missed this; she’s missed _him_.

“How’s Peter?” Will asks eventually.

“I don’t know,” she says. Then, almost shocking herself with her honesty, she adds: “I don’t even care.”

“So, things really are over between the two of you?” He sounds strained, overly faux-casual. 

“Yep,” and it’s all she utters, deciding Peter Florrick doesn’t deserve any more of her words.

He tosses and catches the baseball again. He asks, “Would you ever want to get dinner sometime?”

In a moment most daring and in a moment most elated, she says, “Yes.”

-

She thinks, maybe he’s perfect.

They’re both on their third glasses of wine and his eyes have that warm, tipsy gleam. He spins tales of his best cases and an incredible three pointer he made at yesterday’s pick-up basketball game and the last time he visited Georgetown (“Professor Brennan asked me about you,” he says. “You always were the most memorable person.” A dash of red touches her cheeks). She likes the way he carries the conversation, tries to make her laugh, touches her hand when she brings up the pool party they went to after finals where he unveiled a toned body that no one knew him to have (“Every girl there was staring at you,” she laughs. He tilts his head, “Were you one of them?”). 

He pays the check and leaves a generous tip and somewhere between the restaurant and the walk to her apartment does he take her hand into his. The air is cold but his touch is hot and it is like she is an equilibrium, a perfect melding of extremes. She can’t remember the last time she felt this: a pull, a need, a desire to be with someone. Peter had become mundane—ships passing in the night, a cold side of their bed. With Peter, it was distance; with Will, it is only inches apart.

“The kids are at Peter’s,” she says once they reach her apartment building. He grins.

 They don’t make it past the foyer. The doorknob digs into her back and her hands are in his hair and he tastes like red wine. It is a kiss of lost decades and seemingly no time passed, the way they understand each other and know where to touch, to press, to revel. His mouth moves her neck, his fingers push her suit jacket off her shoulders, and he continues to move further down, her skin aflame under his lips. 

Oh, how he _worships_ her. 

Peter had always been about control and power; Will wants to see her crumble. 

But then, in the heat of it all, comes sharp clarity and she pulls him back up, his eyebrows suddenly skewed. She speaks with worry: “Is this wrong?”

“What?” he deadpans. 

“You’re my boss. I’m only a first-year associate. Should we be doing this?”

He says, “It can be a secret." 

She wants to believe it, but she is a lawyer and she thinks too rationally. “Secrets are always get revealed. If people find out about us, who knows what could happen.”

He cups her jaw. “I don’t care.’

“You—what?”

“Let them suspend me or fire me or do whatever the hell they want.” He’s never been so serious, the way it makes his eyes darker, clearer. “I’ve wanted this, _us_ , for so long. I’m not losing my chance.”

She almost says ‘I love you’ but leans in for a kiss instead, one of passion and beyond definition. He easily reciprocates and even more easily follows her back to her bedroom.

- 

“I’ve never seen him happier,” Diane remarks a month later.

Alicia grips onto her files just a bit tighter. “Will?”

“You’re good for him,” Diane says simply.

“Me?” Alicia scoffs, tries to deflect.

“It’s okay,” Diane affirms, the corners of her lips curving upward. She catches Will watching through the glass. He has a slight tilt to his head and daze in his eyes that Diane knows it’s love, that it isn’t a passing moment nor close to being a fling. Alicia is it for him. “You two were inevitable.” 

**iv.**

Will lazily draws circles on her back. 

Alicia momentarily wonders why they didn’t do this sooner. Bad timing, sure, but Peter never seemed to have that issue with the _other_ women. Being back in the orbit of Will Gardner is near overwhelming, how he had been gone and out of her life for years and suddenly he’s here, blinding with his smile and charismatic wit. 

They had told themselves it would be one incredible hour—the presidential suite was only a bonus. But one hour had turned into waking up together, to soft murmurings of who was free when, to her apartment on teenager-free weekends and his apartment during the in betweens. 

And at first, their affair is just plain sexy. Stealing moments in his office’s bathroom and having the firm believe that they hate each other when it’s more or less foreplay before the late night they’re about to have. She obsesses with the way he sucks in a breath and barely gets out of her name when she lays into him just right. He fixates on new areas of her body each week: right now, it’s the side of her neck (“Don’t leave a bruise like last time,” she warns. He feigns innocence). It’s better than anything either of them has ever had.

Alicia doesn’t believe in soulmates, but when his fingers slide up her inner thigh, oh she just might.

Their affair remains as passionate and toe-curling, but there is an underlying emotion to it that affair is no longer the right word. Will and Alicia hide up in hotels and she wears her wedding ring to work and they both know life is too complicated—but, she’s in love with him and he’s in love with her. Unequivocally, hopelessly, completely in love. 

What had been constant sex and thrilling touches has evolved into something much softer, something better. He kisses the tip of her nose and murmurs how she is beauty. Peter would tell her she looked beautiful when she wore a showy dress, occasional and flippant. Will tells her she is the definition of the word. 

She threads her fingers through his morning hair, enamored by the way it sticks up and makes him look like he’s still at college, always rushing out of his room and nearly late for class. He laughs when she says he never would have survived law school without her, how she made sure he made it to his lectures and stayed up with him until two a.m. for the exams he stressed about. His agreement comes easily, that she was his guiding saint through it all. Now she laughs and continues to laugh even when their lips meet. 

This, she thinks, is what happiness is.

He makes her pancakes in only a white tee and black boxer briefs. It’s so painfully domestic. He tastes like maple syrup and coffee when she kisses him again and again. They break apart to discuss court cases and she later goes back to his room to steal one of his old Georgetown hoodies. When she reappears in the kitchen, he has a look in his eyes, soft like melted chocolate and glazed with sweet nostalgia. It’s near hypnotizing to know she’s the center of his universe.

Eight a.m. rolls around and she fixes his tie before they leave for work (He’ll arrive first. She’ll arrive twenty minutes with a cup of coffee to throw off any suspicions). It’s the most married thing she’s done in the past two years and it makes her pause, thinking. 

“Alicia?” Will asks. 

“I can’t remember the last time I did this,” she says.

“Did what?”

“Fixed a guy’s time… well, _Peter’s_ tie,” she admits, her fingers nimbly adjusting the Windsor knot.

Will slightly sours. “Peter. Right.”

She looks at him and it trips across her lips before she can do anything about it: “It’s just such a married thing to do.” Another pause, then, “I don’t want to do it with Peter anymore.”

He presses, “But me?”

She smiles. “I will always fix your tie, Will.”

“Is that a proposal?” he asks, teasing. 

A touch of pink appears on her cheekbones. “It’s an eventually.”

Will grabs her hands, stopping them, growing more serious. “Do you mean that?”

“Mean what?”

“Us having an… eventually.”

She suddenly feels brave, swallows, then says: “I think we both know this is more than just an affair.”

He kisses her so hard, it almost hurts—it feels like a rebirth. 

-

Alicia wears an engagement ring the day after she makes partner. 

What had originally been a celebratory dinner turned into Will getting down onto one knee and declaring his love in ways she assumed were left only to the movies. “Since Georgetown,” he said, “I’ve loved you since Georgetown.” 

Fellow associates say congratulations in passing. Diane calls Alicia and Will into her office and looks impossibly proud, wishing the sweetest of sentiments. Will intertwines his fingers with Alicia, and it feels wholly right. 

They later kiss in his office. 

“People can see us,” she starts to giggle, like she’s sixteen and falling in love for the first time.

“I don’t care,” he says, their lips only inches apart. “All I can see is you.”

Alicia ignores the governor’s race. Her signature on the divorce papers was the last word given to that chapter of her life. Now, she comes home to Will helping Zach with his math homework and telling Grace about when he knew he wanted to be a lawyer. Alicia and Will bump hips and trade pecks while they make dinner. They sip at their wine glasses and trade notes over the corporate merger that Lockhart/Gardner is spearheading. It’s an easy rhythm into the night. 

Will places down his pen, looking thoughtful. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re getting married.”

Alicia plays coy. “Maybe I only said yes because I want to see you in a tux.”

“Oh, really?” There’s a glint to his eyes.

“Mhmm. I could use some eye candy on my arm.”

He places the files in front of them onto the coffee table and moves closer, enclasping her wrists with his fingers and pushing her onto her back. He leans in, kissing her fully, deeply. “You have no idea much I love you.”

She brings her hand to the back of his head. “I think I do.”

“Ah yes, the Cavanaugh curse,” he jokes. “Always a step ahead of me.”

“Not Alicia Cavanaugh anymore, Will,” she hums. “Alicia Gardner.”

**v.**

“Why won’t you pick me? We were never supposed to be an affair. We are supposed to be together!”

His words hang in the air, heavier with each truth.

“You went out and created your own firm with Cary and _goddamnit_ , I wanted to hate you so badly. I told myself I hated you, told you that you were poison, but I can’t bring myself to actually mean it.”

He’s broken. Hanging shoulders, wet and downcast eyes, crossed arms _broken_. And it’s because of her. For so long, Alicia has been the victim—the wife who the state’s attorney cheated on, the new associate who has been out of law for so long she must have lost her touch, _poor_ _Alicia_.  

Here, she is the villain. 

She desperately wants to touch him, to rest her hand on his shoulder or bring her palm to his cheek, but he flinches as soon as she steps forward. She wonders how she could have let this happen: it used to be Will And Alicia. With one came the other. Now it’s Just Alicia. Just Will. Rival law firms and failing lovers. 

She says, “I’m sorry,” and know it’s not enough, may never be enough. He might not hate her, but he doesn’t have to forgive her. 

“I’ve done everything for you!” He explodes, shaking off the tears and letting a hard anger set into his eyes instead. “I brought you into Lockhart/Gardner. I never told you to divorce Peter. I stayed by your side and didn’t ask for anything more.”

“Will—" 

“We’ve been doing this dance for too long, Alicia,” he sighs through gritted teeth. “I should’ve given up after the voicemails.”

“What the hell does that mean?” She finds her temper flaring. “You said you had no plan. You said I was right to stay with Peter.”

“Well, I lied, okay?” It’s sharp and angry and defeated and broken. “That’s not what my second message actually said." 

Almost a whimper, a shock to the system: “…What did it say?” 

“It doesn’t even matter now—“

“ _Will.”_

“I said my plan was that I loved you.” He looks up through his eyelashes. “That I probably loved you since Georgetown.”

Her mouth goes dry. She says, breathlessly, “You should have told me that.”

“Why?” He bites. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“Yes, it would’ve.”

“How?”

“I would have left Peter.”

It’s like a pin drops. The room falls quiet. 

“If I heard the message—I would have left Peter. I wouldn’t have gotten on that stage and stood by his side. I would have gone to your apartment and figured it all out.”

“And now it’s too late,” he says, internally curses. 

“It’s not,” she nearly pleads, reaching out for him again. 

“Please, we both know we’re always going to have—“

“—Bad timing,” she finishes his sentence, shaking her head. “Not anymore. You asked me to chose you, Will. Well, here I am, choosing you.”

He kisses her. It’s powerful and passionate and everything left on the table. Her arms snake around his neck and he tilts his head to the side, the kiss growing deeper. It’s a remembered rhythm, of moving mouths and finally finding their way back to each other.

Because there’s really not much more to say. Because all they’ve ever done is talk or promise to talk later, to figure things out rather than just _do_. She’s learned that talking never leads anywhere. She had talked to Peter on so many angry nights—and never ended up divorced. She had talked to Will after so many wins and he would look at her in such a way—and they never gave in.

She falls into him, his hands on her waist and his mouth moving to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. He murmurs her name and it’s the perfect sound. He moves back to her face and cradles her chin in the crook of his hands.

“I love you.” It’s the three simplest words, but he says them with the weight of the world. “Only ever you.”

Her ribcage rattles with her heart, expands and bellows with soaring elation. She tearily kisses him back, says what she’s been holding back for longer than she has ever known: “I love you, too.”

Alicia can’t fully look away from Will. She finds him to be like the sun: bright, blinding, consuming. She wants to hold onto the moment, the way his eyes crinkle and that half-smirk on his lips, a kind of minute infinity. He brushes an errant strand of hair off her face and keeps smiling. 

Maybe it’s twenty years late. Five years late. A single day later. Hours and seconds of guarded words and missed moments, their mouths saying one thing and their eyes meaning another. 

But now—now, they finally unravel.

It’s the most fulfilling realization: Oh, it’s you. It’s always been you.


End file.
